ILYICH, Russia - Rescuers on Monday recovered the bodies of three sailors after a Russian freighter sank near the Black Sea, while a slick of oil from a sunken tanker began washing onto beaches. Officials were assessing what could be the worst environmental disaster in the region in years.

"The damage is so huge it can hardly be evaluated. It can be compared to an ecological catastrophe," Interfax news agency quoted Alexander Tkachyov, governor of Russia's Black Sea region of Krasnodar, as saying.

"Thirty thousand birds have died, and it's just impossible to count the loss of fish," he told regional officials.